Author 




Title 



Class 



S.\il53. 



Inriprint . 



Book t^ 



ie--17372-l SPO 



Sf 



PISCICULTURE. 



AN ADDRESS 



ON THE 



A 



irti|i(:ial|)t^ijdhtj0fybt 



HABITS, Etc. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



DETROIT SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION, 



N. W. CLARK, 



OF N O R T H V I L L E ,. A/ ),( H 



D E^T R O I T : 

TRIBUNE PRINTING COMPANY, 
WILLIAM A. SCRIPPS. 

1875- 






lb"i 



PISCICULTURE. 



AN ADDRESS 





iLiilLftl 



THEIR HABITS, Etc., 



Delivered refore the Detroit Scientific Association, 



N. W. CLARK, of NORTHVILLE, MICH. 



In this essay I cannot hope, with my limited 
knowledge of natural history, to add much to the 
scientific lore of our country, but I wish to contrib- 
ute my mite of practical experience in the direction 
ot investigations now being prosecuted in our coun- 
try relating to the propagation, and especially to the 
sustenance of fish durine the first few months of 
their life. 

By pisciculture, in the ordinary use of the term, 
is meant the artificial propagation or raising of fish 



with a view to an increase of the supply for food. 
The waters, as well as the soil of the earth, are 
largely drawn upon for the subsistance of mankind. 
The savage visits the streams and the lakes no less 
than the woods for the game upon which he lives. 
And man in a civilized condition of life depends 
nearly as much upon the products of the fisheries 
as upon those of the fields. 

Though the land in a state of nature yields each 
of the various kinds of fruit and grains employed as 
food, still the supply is only sufficient to maintain 
man and animals living purely in a state of nature. 
The principle is simply that of the equilibrium of 
demand and supply as a natural condition of things. 
Whenever by the various vicissitudes of season, of 
soil and of climate, the demand exceeds the natural 
supply, the equilibrium is preserved through the 
destruction by famine and by violence of a portion 
of the population. 

This is the so-called struggle for life, which is 
more or less observable everywhere among men 
and animals in a state of nature. Thus the demand 
is regulated by the supply. 

In other words supply is the independent varia- 
ble, and demand the dependent one. 

Under a civilized condition of life, on the other 
hand, supply is regulated by demand, rather than 
demand by supply. 

The wants of mankind, instead of the means of 
supplying want, constitute the independent quantity. 
The supply Is constantly being compared with the 
demand as a standard. 



^^^.^ii 



W^U 



If supply is found to be below necessary de- 
mands the former must needs be increased since 
the latter cannot be diminished. 

It is thus that the pursuit of agriculture has 
arisen. It is simply to increase the natural product 
of the land and thus bring- supply up to the level of 
the demands of civilized life among an ever increas- 
ing population, that we have the various arts and 
appliances, the industry and providence of success- 
ful farming. Similarly, the object had in view in 
pisciculture- is to augment the supply of another 
and important kind of food by increasing the 
natural product of the waters. 

This branch of industry has received, until re- 
cendy, comparatively little attention. 

Agriculture has naturally been developed long 
antecedently to pisciculture. Man's natural home 
is upon the land. His attention would thus be 
earlier directed to the culture of the soil than to 
that of the water. The principles underlying the 
successful raising of crops and flocks naturally be- 
come familiar to him before those relatinsf to the 
production of fish. 

Indeed, it was not until it itbeean to be realized 
that the supply of the finny product must soon be- 
come sensibly diminished, that we began, in this 
country, to direct our attention to the matter of pre- 
serving and increasing the product of the rivers and 
lakes. 

It is thus that we have laws to prevent the 
drawing of the seine in our inland lakes. 

It is thus also that our State appropriates money 



to the support of the artificial hatching and distri- 
bution of some of the most important and valuable 
kinds of fish. In older countries, as in Europe, 
attention has been now for many years directed to 
the systematic raising of fish for the market. In 
Italy and Egypt the art of pisciculture dates from 
a most remote antiquity. 

With the Chinese, owing to the dense popula- 
tion, and the extended water territory of China, the 
raising of fish forms a very common and important 
branch of industry. Pisciculture, as now carried on, 
originated with the French, being introduced by M 
Remy, a fisherman, whose means of support was 
fishing in the streams of La Bresse, in the Vosges. 

It was the great waste of eggs observed to be 
attendant upon the natural breeding of fish that led 
M Remy to experiment upon an artificial method 
of treating the ova, with a view to restocking the 
streams of his native district. 

His success at once attracted the attention of 
many of the leading men of the country ; prizes and 
preferment were the fisherman's, and his enterprise 
became the object of governmental patronage. 
Thus in a period of little over twenty years artificial 
fish culture has so developed in France that an im- 
mense establishment has been put in operation at 
Huningue, on the Rhine, at which millions of eggs 
are annually received, and from which, after hatch- 
ing, the young fish are distributed to Germany, 
Spain, England and other countries throughout the 
Continent. 

The total number of all kinds of fish sent out 



from Huningue during the first ten years was upwards 
of I lo millions. 

At other points also the artificial system is exten- 
sively employed. The salmon fisheries of the river 
Tay and those of Ireland, those of the Thames and 
of Scotland are notable examples. 

The number and extent of establishments de- 
voted to the propagation of the various kinds of fresh 
water fish are rapidly increasing in the old country, 
and the importance of systematic pisciculture is 
becoming more and more a subject of governmental 
consideration. Such will be the case in our own 
country also, as it becomes older. 

Already there are several more or less extensive 
fisheries in successful operation in different parts of 
our own country. 

The Legislature of our own State, two years 
ago, appropriated ^7,500 per annum to inaugurate 
the enterprise ot fish culture in this State. 

The Governor, in his recent message, says : 
" The success attendino- this work, thus far, is suffi- 
cient proof that fish culture in Michigan is no longer 
an experiment." He advises the continuance of the 
appropriation, saying: "There can be no doubt that 
in a very few years the returns from the expenditure 
will prove it a wise and prudent investment." 

In this State the direction of fish culture is very 
naturally toward the propagation of the white fish 
of our great lakes. Indeed, it was owing mainly 
to a proper estimate of the importance and value to 
the State of the whitefish fisheries upon those lakes, 
coupled with the fact that the supply of this kind of 



fish was becoming' sensibly diminished and must 
before loniz altogether fail, that attention in Michi- 
gan began to be called specially to the subject of 
fish culture. 

As in other departments of labor, particularly in 
those enofaofements which involve considerations 
relating" to the natural order of thing^s, the success- 
ful prosecution of pisciculture requires a careful in- 
duction of conditioning principles together with 
much experience in the application ot those princi- 
ples to different cases, both under the same and also 
under diverse circumstances. We can become 
acquainted with the principles underlying successful 
pisciculture only by observing the conditions and 
circumstances attending the inception and develop- 
ment of fish in their native haunts. 

Much wasteful expense and discouraging failures 
have resulted from disregard of this simple and 
obvious fact. Nature is the only proper teacher of 
her own laws, and true methods can be learned in 
no other school of art than that in which she presides. 
As the farmer needs to know the nature of the soil 
on which a given plant spontaneously grows, the 
circumstances of climate, season, etc., under which it 
naturally develops ; the nature, habits, etc., of the 
plant itself, so the pisciculturist must understand the 
peculiarities of the water which a given kind of fish 
naturally inhabits ; whether it is salt or fresh, pond or 
spring, lake or brook, etc., must know the time of 
year, temperature of water, etc., in which the parent 



fish spawn and in which the ova hatches ; must know 
also the period of the self-sustenance of the infantile 
hatching, its natural food after the expiration of this 
period, its nature and habits throughout its entire 
development to full maturity. 

A practical illustration of the importance of 
these considerations is furnished in the raising of 
each and every kind of fish known to pisciculture. 
An example in point is cited from the writer's own 
experience in the treatment of white-fish, as pub- 
lished in the Forest and Stream, over his own sig- 
nature, bearing date, Clarkston, June 29, 1874, as fol- 
lows: "About November 15th, 1869, through the kind 
assistance of Mr, Seth Green I placed 50,000 white- 
fish ova in my hatching troughs, in spring-water, at 
a temperature of 47° Fahrenheit, at this place where 
I was then hatching brook trout successfully. I 
soon discovered that these eggs were entirely dif- 
ferent in their nature from those of the brook trout, 
for within two weeks' time, nine-tenths of them had 
turned white and were worthless, and I was about 
to abandon them in despair. 

At this critical time, Mr. Green came to my relief, 
and after a careful invesligation, we found a 
small portion had indications of vitality in them and 
he advised me to carefully remove all the good 
eggs, and by this means I succeeded in hatching 
about 2,000 in good condition Jan. 15th. 

These fish were entirely different from the young 
trout when first hatched out, as the moment they 
emerged from their shell they darted off and ex- 
hibited a rapid motion in the water, while the latter 



were quite inactive, owing to the fact that yourtg 
trout retain a laro^e umbilical sac, which sustains 
them some sixty days without food, while the white 
fish have a very small appendage, which is absorbed 
in about fifteen days. 

These escaped from my charge through the 
meshes of No. 1 2 wire cloth, clown the stream, and 
I had no opportunity to experiment further with 
them that year. On the following November, 1870, 
Mr. George Clark, who is an intelligent and ex- 
perienced fisherman, kindly aided me in securing the 
same number of the ova from the Detroit River that 
I took the previous year. 

I placed these in the same water as before, and 
succeeded in hatching a much larger proportion, 
and from my previous experience I selected No. 40 
copper wire cloth, which proved effective in retaining 
them in their trouorhs. 

This gave me an opportunity to use all the skill 
possible to keep them till spring. 

Soon after these were hatched, James W. Milner, 
U. S. Deputy Fish Commissioner, visited my 
hatchery, and we decided that he should take home 
with him 100 of these swift-motioned fellows, and 
the balance, being some 3,000, were to remain in 
their hatching boxes. 

Our plan was to learn what artificial food would 
best sustain them till spring. 

As Mr. Green had not yet learned what they 
required at this infantile period, all our efforts failed, 
as all died within four weeks, notwithstanding our 
constant watchfulness over them. This result quite 



puzzled me, and I began to study the causes thd.t 
produced this failure, and as I knew that the water 
in which the parent fish naturally deposit their ova 
about the shoals of our gfreat lakes, becomes frozen 
over about the middle of November, and remains so 
until about April ist, it occurred to me that the low 
temperature of the water in which these eggs laid 
from the middle of November till April ist (being 
at a uniform temperature of from 32^/^ degrees to 
2)2, degrees), retarded the process of their incuba- 
tion to the season of the year when the ice leaves 
the shoals and the animalculse develops sufficiently 
to sustain them, which is about the time their umbi- 
lical sac, being absorbed naturally, disappears. 

These ideas which suggested themselves to my 
mind, led me to try practically and prove the truth 
of my theory ; consequently I caused to be erected 
a large hatching house, in the Fall of 1871, and took 
water from a pond raised on a small stream which 
became frozen over early in November and remained 
so till April, at which time they hatched out. 

The water that flowed over these eeSTs durine 
that time, stood at a uniform temperature of about 
2,2, degrees. A much larger proportion of these 
ova hatched out than previously, and remained 
vigorous and healthy till the time they were planted 
in some of the desirable lakes of this county (Oak- 
land). A good number were also placed in the De- 
troit river. 

This natural and scientific method settled the 
question in my mind that I had discovered the only 
true mode that would result in perfect success. In 



lO 



this connection,- as bearing upon the question of the 
natural food for the young fish, immechately after 
the absorption of the umbiHcal sac. I give the fol- 
lowing minutes furnished me by Dr. P. N. Hagle, an 
experienced microscopist associated with me in the 
experiments. 

For five years I have directed my attention par- 
ticularly toward the discovery of artificial food, or 
otherwise, the natural aliment of the white fish dur- 
ing its infantile stage, and my experiments and 
observations have been attended with results exceed- 
ingly satisfactory to myself, and as I feel, of the 
greatest importance in their bearing upon the inter- 
ests of successful pisciculture everywhere. I will 
attempt to give you, briefly, a description of the 
method I have pursued. 

About the middle oi November, 1873, I placed 
some 1,800,000 of the ova of white fish in my hatch- 
ing boxes, which received a constant supply of run 
ning water at a temperature of 33 degrees, 

I also arranged in the same building, an additional 
trough, through which flowed a stream of spring 
water at an uniform temperature of 46 degrees. 

Knowing that the eggs would develop and hatch 
in water of the latter temperature in sixty days, 
while in that of the former it required one hundred 
and thirty-five days, I was led to adopt such a mixing 
of the two waters as should graduate the hatching 
to such times as I desired. 

1 accordingly placed about 3,000 ova in the 
spring water and hatched them about January 15th. 
Of these I placed all except some 200 in a small 



lake near my residence. The 200 were placed in a 
tank of running- spring water in which they survived 
about four weeks. 

Again there hatched on February 15th about 
6,000 more, which were placed in part in the lake 
and a portion iu the tank, as I had done before. 
The latter in this case lived about five weeks, hav- 
ing, as I suppose, better food than those previously 
placed in the tank, yet not sufficient to sustain them, 
so that they also literally starved to death, 

I continued, however, still further, hatching the 
balance of the 1,800,000 about April ist. Of these 
I put, April 9th, 200 into a tank receiving a con- 
stant supply of lake water, and the same number 
into a tank of spring water, having taken pains in 
each case to wash and remove from the tank all the 
slime in which might be retained any remains of 
animalculae or insect life. 

Hitherto the young fish had began to die at the 
end of three weeks and at the expiration of four 
weeks were all dead. 

The theory which suggested the observations to 
which I am now about to refer, has been already 
hinted at in the extract from the article published as 
above quoted, in which was maintained that the fish 
should be hatched at such a time of year that the 
umbilical sac on disappearing should be immediately 
followed by the animalculae as a proper and natural 
food of the young fish, and which could not occur 
until the opening of the warn season. 

These considerations led me to make the exam- 
inations noted in the follov/ino- memorandum. 



Spring Water. 



Lake Water. 



Remarks. 



1874. 
May 8. 



May 10. 



May 14. 



May 15. 



May 18. 



May 22. 



Temperature not 
noted. 



Temp. 52° Fah. 
No animalculae 
to be seen. 



Germs of animalculse, however, 
were detected. 



Temp. 4t°. No 
animalculae to be 
seen. 



Temp. 60°. Abun- 
dance of animal- 
culae. 



The lake water taken from a still 
point, near the shore, also from 
the tank. 



Do. 



Temp. 60°. Ani- 
malculae increas- 
ed in size and 
numbers. 



Temperature noted at the fount, 
and found to be a degree lower 
than at the tank. Time, 7:45 



Do. 



Temp. 53-. Noth- 
ing seen. 



Vision very indistinct by reason of 
clouds. Night preceding was 
cold. Time, 8:15 A.- m. 



Temp. 44°. 
animalcula 
ible. 



Temp. 53°. Great 
activity of ani- 
malculae. 



Temp. 41°. 
animalculae 



The fish in the lake water in much 
better condition than those in 
the spring and have increased to 
double their size when hatched. 
Observations made at 5:15 r. m. ; 
good light. 



Temp. 53°. Other 
forms of animal- 
culae have made 
their appearance 

,in great numbers. 



Time, 8:30 A. m. 



May 26 



May 28. 



June 2. 



June 5. 



June 8. 



Temp._42^. Noth- 
ing visible. 



Temp. 53°. Great 
numbers of ani- 
malculae seen, 



Temp. 44°. Noth- 
ing visible. 



Temp. 60°. Nu- 
merous varieties 
of animalculae. 



Temp. 56° at 100 
feet from the 
spring. Where 
the water enters 
the tank nothing 
visible. 



Temp. 56°. Ani- 
malculae lively 
and of a minute 
radiate appear- 
ance. 



No observation. 



Temp. 60°. 



Temp. 54°. Ani- 
malculae visible. 



Animalculas visi- 
ble and very live- 
ly- 



Many fish have died in the spring, 
while all seem to be doing well 
in the pond, having increased to 
three or four times their size at 
hatching. 

Fish still doing well in the lake 
water. A fine clear view at 4:15 
A. M. 



Fish are twenty times their origi- 
nal size. Have had heavy show- 
ers which have raised the tem- 
perature of the spring. 



Light bad. All the fish in the 
lake water doing well. Some in 
spring water found dead from 
destitution of food, as evinced by 
their transparency under the 
microscope. 

The fish may be seen gathering 
about the point of entrance of 
fresh water, coming to them 
through a perforated tube. They 
seem actively engaged in pur- 
suit of food, which might seem 
to be more abundant at that 
point. 



June 18. 



Temp. 48°. Ani- 
malculse still seen 



Animalculae lively. 



The fish doing well. Those in 
spring water beginning to im- 
prove Some of those in lake 
water i)^i inches in length 
Time, 8:30 A. M. Weather cloudy 
with rain. 



13 

These experiments have been conducted with 
great care, and seem to form the basis of an 
irrefragable argument that the young of any kind 
of fish cannot survive the vicissitudes of cHmate if 
means are used to hasten their incubation, so that 
they shall hatch out more than about three weeks 
before the balmy breezes from the south cause the 
animalcula;, which constitute the natural food of the 
young fish, to accumulate in the waters in sufficient 
quantity and proper quality for their sustenance. 

The development of the animalcule, their exist- 
ence and g'rowth, imperceptible though they be to 
the naked eye, are no less a product of the light and 
warmth of the spring sun, than is that of the vege- 
tation — the grass that comes upon our fields for the 
sustenc^nce of our flocks. 

With these considerations in view, is it not 
obviously as true that other varieties of the sal mon- 
oid family, indeed all fish as well as the white fish, 
must meet the same fate of starvation and death 
where means are used to develop them into life out 
of their natural season, or at a time when the waters 
of this latitude are so ice-bound that not a particle 
of animal life can exist for their sustenance. 

I wish to inquire of the practical pisciculturist, 
what reason he has to suppose that salmon ova, 
tal>:en from the McCloud river in California, the 
temperature of which is reported to be 50° Fah., 
and their eggs being subject to the vicisitudes of 
climate during their transportation, after arrival 
here, which is about the middle of October — and 



14 

the young fish thus become dependent upon such 
food as chance may furnish them, I wish to ask who 
can expect a single one of the fish hatched under 
such circumstances to survive in our latitude during 
the winter? 

I believe it is just as necessary to the existence 
of this fish, as of the white fish to be hatched at that 
time of year, when the temperature of the water is 
such as to admit of the development of aniinalculae 
the only natural food of the young fish after the ab- 
sorption of the umbilical sac. 

Take another case — the salmon trout for in- 
stance, which is a native of our state, and let us ex- 
amine their natures and necessities. 

About Oct. I St, 1874, I visited Mackinaw lor the 
purpose of procuring some of the ova of this fish 
for breeding purposes, and I suceeded in securing 
some 300,000. 

I arrived at Northville with them about the 25th 
of the same month, the eggs being in good condition 
save a few thousand that were injured in transpor- 
tation in the extreme warm weather. The eggs 
were placed in pure spring water at an average 
temperature of 45°. It is now Jan. 20th, and they 
are all hatched out, and when I look upon the 
beautiful lively little fellows, in full health and vigof, 
each with its exact quota which nature has fur- 
nished them appended to their stomaches, only 
sufficient, however, to sustain them for some fifty or 
sixty days, it makes me feel sad when I think of the 
destruction there must certainly be from famine if 



15 

turned out in our barren waters at this season of the 
year, for want of that natural food which I beheve 
is just as necessary to insure their proper and 
healthy growth as milk is for babes. All fish-breeders 
full well know that with all the care and the best 
artificial food we can furnish, only a limited number 
will survive this critical period, simply because they 
are found to eat, if anything-, food unsuited to their 
age and condition. Let us now inquire, for a 
mo ent, what are the natural conditions of these 
fisy In their native haunts. We find them spawning 
d/ring the month of October, upon the rocky and 
f'ravelly shoals of the waters they inhabit. In the 
northern latitudes, where this kind of fish most 
abounds, we find, within a few weeks after the spawn- 
ing season, the water frozen over, and thus the eggs 
lie in ice-water, which retards their hatching until 
about March i st, when they come out,having somewhat 
the appearance of a tad-pole. In this condition they lie 
among the rocks and pebbles, well protected from 
the depredations of their enemies, until about the first 
of May, when their sac having been absorbed, the 
waters are sufficiently warm for the appearance of 
the animalculae upon which the young fish are now 
become dependent. Thus, from natural considera- 
tions, from the laws regulating an universal hygiene, 
and also from the confirmation that the view has, in 
the testimony of sailors, who report that tew dead 
fish are even found in the waters, we judge that 
nature's method is the only true one, and that it 



16 

must be observed and imitated in order to attain 
any real success in any of the artificial processes ot 
fish culture. Allow me here to relate a bit of my own 
experience in trout-breeding-, as I feel confident you 
want facts. In the year 1872, being then fully 
engaged in experiments connected with the breed- 
ing- of white fish, and only having saved a limited 
supply of the ova of brook trout, I arranged the few 
I had (about 2,500) in hatching-boxes in such a 
manner that when hatched out they could take pos- 
session ot an adjacent pond, 14 x 45 feet in size 
and two feet deep. 

These eo-o-s received but little attention durino- 
the winter ; they were late in hatching; and about 
April 1st, I observed for the first time numbers of 
them swimming about in a lively condition, their 
yolk sacs having- almost entirely disappeared. 

These active little fellows, about 2,000 in all, 
were allowed to remain there entirely unfed and 
uncared for until about September 15th, at which 
time they had attained a size far beyond any I had 
ever seen. I never saw a dead one among them. 
It will be borne in mind that this pond was spring- 
water, about one hundred feet from the spring and 
of a temperature of about 55°. 

This was the same water in which I had experi- 
mented three or four years previously, in raising 
brook trout by following Seth Green's book on "Fish 
culture," feeding the young- fish on lobered milk, 
chopped liver, etc. Thesefish I did not succeed nearly 



17 

as well in raising as I did diose above referred to, 
and I am satisfied that the former had but little 
if anything, to eat, but the animalculae contained in 
the water. Now is it reasonable to suppose that 
had these fish been hatched out by December ist 
as is sometimes done, they would have survived 
longer than the time of their self-sustenance or the 
period of the absorption of the umbilical sac — a 
term of about sixty days at most, I will relate 
another incident in my experience, which is of very 
ereat value as an aid in arrivinor at correct conclu- 
sions as to the conditions of growth and well being 
of fish. About October loth, 1873, through the aid 
of Professor Baird, U. S. Fish Commissioner, there 
were sent to our State Fish Commissioners some 
30,000 of the salmon ova from California. These 
were placed In charge of Jackson Crouch, near 
Jackson, Michigan, who was then breedino^ brook 
trout quite successfully. 

These were hatched in apparent good condi- 
tion about November ist following, and some time 
early in January they were all placed in the pure 
streams of that vicinity, except 2,000 which were 
taken by Commissioner Jerome and placed in the 
spring at the State Hatchery, at Pokagon, the State 
Hatchery being at this time already erected at that 
place. Now for the result. I have recently visited 
and seen both lots, and find on close inspection and 
inquiry that those which have been under the care 
of Mr. Jerome have measured from six to seven 
inches in length, while those left with Mr. Crouch 
are only from four to six inches long and not in as 



1 8 

good condition. The growdi and condition of these 
fish can only be accounted for on the ground of dif- 
ference in the quantity of food, 

Mr. Crouch having, in addition to his i,ooo sal- 
mon, to procure food for 20,000 more ravenous 
brook trout, while Mr. Jerome had only the 1,000 to 
feed, and that at the expense of the State. The old 
adage holds true in fish culture as in agriculture, 
that good feed makes fat fish as well as fat calves. 

How about the young salmon that were turned 
out to perish, as I fear they have, in the barren 
waters at this cold season of the year ? 

I was informed by Mr. Crouch that so far as he 
had any knowledge, none which he had turned out 
to shirk for themselves, more than a year ago, had 
ever been seen. Again, let us look at the pracdcal 
results of the 40,000 salmon eggs which were sent 
to me by the courtesy of Professsr Baird in March, 
1872. 

These eggs were received by me at my hatchery, 
then at Clarkston, in good condidon, and so far 
advanced that they hatched after lying in ice-water 
for some twenty days. It was, however, the fact of 
a change in the weather by which the temperature 
was carried up to 55°, that hastened the hatching, 
bringing the fish out about April loth. Is it not a 
question of weighty importance whether the eggs 
of all the salmonoid family, may not be sufficiently 
retarded in their incubation, by the use of ice, as to 



19 

luring" the fish into Hfe at such a time as their natural 
food shall he furnished through natural causes ? 

In proof of this theory being practical, allow me 
to refer you to the experiment made by me last win- 
ter at my hatchery at Clarkston, of which our State 
Fish Commissioners and many other disting-uished 
•citizens were cognizant. 

After keeping several thousand of the white fish 
■ova about two weeks in ice-water, I removed them 
to a refrigerator, so arranged as to admit alternate 
layers, first of moss, and then thin muslin cloth, next 
the ova, thin muslin cloth again, which was followed 
by a layer of ice, supported by galvanized iron. 

This arrangement can be repeated ad infinitum 
By this means the eggs were kept at a temperature 
just above freezing, which delayed their incubation 
to the time I desired to remove them to the hatch- 
ing-trough. 

When hatched out they must, of course, lie in 
the natural element to escape death. 

Some time in the month of March, these eo-o-s 
were taken from the cold bath in which they had 
lain nearly four months in a perfectly healthy con- 
dition, and were all hatched within six days after. 
Their conditions were thus chaneed ; this beino- 
true, I would ask, why may not the salmon ova be 
taken from the McCloud river, California, and be 
similarly treated, and removed to almost any part 
of the globe, successfully ? 

But to return to the fish of which we were speak- 



ing. As soon as the umbilical sac was absorbed, L 
deposited a large portion of them in Au Sable river — 
a beautiful, clear and rapid stream of water which 
empties into Lake Huron, near Thunder Bay. This 
was about May 20th — temperature of water 60' 
deoffees. 

These salmon have been caught and samples of 
them sent, by D. H. Fitzhugh, Esq., of Bay City, to- 
Prof. Baird, who pronounced them genuine Penob- 
scot salmon. These two opposite results, as relat- 
ino- to the Atlantic and Pacific salmon, indicate 
plainly that the former have fallen into waters con- 
genial to them, while the latter, it is to be feared, 
have perished through the unnatural circumstances 
they have been forced to occupy. 

In conclusion, I call especial attention of scienti- 
fic and practical fish-breeders to the ideas herein^ 
suggested. For my part, I have been guided to the 
views I have endeavored to present, by the experi- 
ments of a humble seeker after true and rational 
methods of advancing what I can but feel is already 
and destined to become a more and more important 
branch of industry in this country. Hoping that 
what I have presented will tend to awaken a more 
general interest among you on this subject, and 
thanking you for the opportunity you have accorded 
me of addressing you, I close. 



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